Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD)

This storm cloud on Jupiter is almost as large as the Earth.
Known as a
white oval,
the swirling cloud is a high pressure system equivalent to an
Earthly anticyclone.
The cloud is one of a
"string of pearls" ovals south of
Jupiter's famous
Great Red Spot.

An odd thing about the group of lights near the center is that four of them are
the same distant
quasar.
This is because the foreground galaxy -- in the center of the quasar images and the
featured image --
is acting like a choppy
gravitational lens.

Is that a spaceship or a cloud?
Although it may seem like an
alien mothership,
it's actually a impressive thunderstorm cloud called a
supercell.
Such colossal storm systems center on
mesocyclones --
rotating updrafts that can span several kilometers and deliver
torrential rain and high winds including
tornadoes.

For 360 degrees,
a view along the plane of the ecliptic is captured in
this remarkable panorama, with seven planets in a starry sky.
The mosaic was constructed using images taken
during January 24-26, from Nacpan Beach, El Nido in Palawan, Philippines.

Far beyond
the local
group of galaxies lies
NGC 3621,
some 22 million light-years away.
Found in the multi-headed southern constellation
Hydra,
the winding spiral arms of this gorgeous
island universe are loaded with
luminous blue star clusters, pinkish starforming regions,
and dark dust lanes.

Seven worlds orbit the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1,
a mere 40 light-years away.
In May 2016
astronomers using the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals
Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) announced the discovery of three
planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

What's happening to the rings of Saturn?
Nothing much, just a little moon making waves.
The moon is 8-kilometer
Daphnis
and it is making waves in the
Keeler Gap of
Saturn's rings
using just its gravity -- as it
bobs up and down, in and
out.

Does this strange dark ball look somehow familiar?
If so, that might be because it is our Sun.
In the featured image from 2012, a
detailed solar view was captured originally in a
very specific color
of red light, then rendered in black and white, and then color inverted.